Web collaboration and e-business solutions may be provided by use of an application known as the eRoom server application (“eRoom”) from eROOM TECHNOLOGIES, INCORPORATED<www.eroom.com>. eRoom can run on the MICROSOFT WINDOWS 2000 server family of products from MICROSOFT CORPORATION, Redmond, Wash. One version of eRoom can be deployed using either a built-in database engine which utilizes SQLAnywhere or deployed using the Microsoft SQL 2000 server or SQL Server 7 database. Both deployment methods are stand-alone installations, meaning that the eRoom and SQLAnywhere run on the same machine with no redundancy. When used with Microsoft SQL, the database engine can reside locally on the eRoom server or on a different server.
Both deployment methods do not provide for redundancy or high availability features. For example, the eRoom server application does not support the Microsoft Clustering Service as a native feature. Instead, methods, such as fault tolerant hardware and disk configurations combined with full system backups, are the current and non-robust techniques to protect an eRoom instance.
Therefore, current technologies, such as eRoom, are unable to support a clustered highly available instance which would be useful in, for example, critical applications or in an environment with many users. For example, the eRoom application does not support clustering as a native feature and is advertised as a stand-alone application. Therefore, current technologies are limited in their capabilities and suffer from at least the above constraints.